CBS Issues Fake (and Totally Awesome) News Release

Did you hear the news that CBS sued ABC over their new show called The Glass House?

Apparently CBS thinks it’s a direct rip-off of Big Brother, the reality show that follows a group of strangers living together in a house where they’re recorded and filmed 24/7.

And, to be fair, The Glass House also follows a group of strangers living together in a completely wired and state-of-the-art house. The only difference? The audience gets to vote on who stays and who goes.

The Fake News Release

But CBS wasn’t finished. They issued a news release announcing the development of a new show called Dancing on the Stars.

See for yourself:

Subsequent to recent developments in the creative and legal community, CBS Television today felt it was appropriate to reveal the upcoming launch of an exciting, ground-breaking and completely original new reality program for the CBS Television Network. Moderately famous and sort of well-known people you almost recognize competing for big prizes by dancing on the graves of some of Hollywood’s most iconic and well-beloved stars of stage and screen.

And in follow-up interviews, a CBS spokesperson added:

This very creative enterprise will bring a new sense of energy and fun that’s totally unlike anything anywhere else, honest. Given the current creative and legal environment in the reality programming business, we’re sure nobody will have any problem with Dancing on the Stars or our upcoming half-hour comedy for prime time, Postmodern Family. After all, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

I personally like the “honest” at the end of the first sentence. The sarcasm gives me great joy!

Too Far?

But did CBS take this too far?

I know there have been certain situations where I’ve wanted to do the same. Heck, we have a former client that we haven’t worked with for nearly two years that I still want to call out in writing…maybe even in my weekly Crain’s column.

But I don’t know if I’d have the cajones to do this (clearly I don’t in the case of the former client).